Four-year residential colleges and universities have traditionally been insular places where education is mostly contained within the college’s boundaries and more specifically, a student’s given major.
Plymouth State University (PSU) is ditching that model in place of a new one based on clusters across majors and interactions with area businesses and the community.
Donald Birx, president of PSU, says it may be just a bit true when some critics say today’s higher education is no longer as relevant or impactful as it should be.
The changes that Birx has in mind stem from his fear that America may be short-changing its younger generation by not providing the “innovative, creative and integrative skills and knowledge needed to lead in a global economy.”
In his first year, Birx has set in motion a plan to dramatically transform PSU into what could be a national model of how undergraduate and graduate students in colleges and universities of like size—4,000 to 5,000 students—can prepare themselves to be leaders in today’s global economy.
PSU will change its 24 undergraduate academic departments in three colleges and graduate studies program to seven strategically theme-based interdisciplinary clusters: Innovation and Entrepreneurship; Arts and Technology; Education; Democracy and Social Change; Tourism; Environment and Sustainable Development; Exploration and Discovery; Justice and Security; and Health and Human Enrichment.
Beginning in fall 2017, many incoming first-year students will take a seminar series designed to give them a broad understanding of the opportunities within each of the seven clusters. As students progress through their degree programs, they will take classes and work with faculty members and peers across multiple clusters.
Full implementation is expected to take at least three years.
The Cost of Change
The planned changes were announced in June, a month after Birx presided over PSU’s 145th commencement at which nearly 1,000 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees were awarded inside the new ALLWell North building.
Though the changes will be transformational for both students and the bottom line, change of any kind is never easy and often comes with some pain. Seventy-eight, or 10.6 percent, of PSU’s 734 employees will no longer be on the payroll by Dec. 31. Eleven faculty members are taking voluntary early retirement packages. Thirteen staff members were laid off, but all others are taking voluntary separation packages. Some positions will be refilled, but half, or possibly more, will not.
PSU’s administrative structure is being redesigned to empower decision-makers so they can more easily implement initiatives, Birx explains.
Annual savings are expected to be $5 million by the time the plan is fully implemented in three years that will provide the university with resources to increase financial aid and strengthen programs, Birx says.
The board of trustees of the University System of NH (USNH) also voted unanimously to support PSU’s new strategic vision by providing $10.6 million of USNH internal borrowing funds. Some of these dollars are already being used to construct two new open laboratories in PSU’s existing Lamson Library.
PSU’s open laboratory initiative is designed to connect business leaders, faculty and students so they can work together as interdisciplinary teams in problem-solving research and development.
The university is looking for business and nonprofit partners located within a two-hour drive of Plymouth, from the Canadian border to the Greater Boston area.
“We will teach differently,” Birx says. “A three-credit course could become a four-credit course that includes working on a team project in an open lab where the lines between disciplines are blurred.”
Undergraduate and graduate students will continue to earn degrees in major disciplines but once the new hands-on approach is implemented, they will also be able to earn certificates in various specialty areas within each cluster.
The open labs will provide students with an environment in which to synthesize information and to coax out what is needed to creatively solve problems, not aiming necessarily for just depth, but breadth as well, Birx explains. His experience with open laboratory initiatives is from when he served as chancellor of Penn State Erie, The Behrend College.
Transforming Education
Birx also has a history of transformation, both in the business and education sectors. He spent 19 years at Systems Research Laboratories Inc., an electronic and automation corporation in Ohio, where he rose from senior systems engineer to vice president and team leader of technology and new ventures.
Also as vice president for research for the University of Houston System (UHS), he initiated six system-wide, multidisciplinary clusters that spanned its colleges and campuses and also founded the Center for Industrial Partnerships, increasing the interplay between the business community and research faculty. Along with other initiatives, this helped change the system into a Tier I research university, losing its reputation as “Cougar High.”
“What drives me is the desire to leave the same legacy of global economic leadership to our children that we received,” says Birx, who holds a bachelor’s in engineering physics, an MBA in finance and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. “We must work to equip them with the integrative knowledge and skills to create and make things that the world wants, to solve the multidisciplinary challenges of the 21st century, and to make innovative and entrepreneurial leaps in discovery and application that everyone has grown to expect from us.”
Higher education and the economy are inextricably linked, he says, emphasizing that the new post-Civil War public universities were open laboratories where industry and education met and where liberal arts played a key role along with engineering and agriculture in our nation’s future.
Those connections are vital in today’s economy. “Higher education and our economy are going through one of the greatest upheavals since public education got its start with the Morrill Act—the Land-Grant College Act of 1862—that gave land to each state to establish public universities,” Birx explained in remarks made during his first University Day in August 2015.
Although this initiative is “really revolutionary,” Birx points out that it is firmly grounded in PSU’s strengths, including its commitment to service to others, as spelled out in its motto, “Ut prosim—That I may serve,” as well as its tradition of creating strong partnerships.
PSU also reflects its rural location, he says. “There’s a can-do attitude and a recognition that you not only have to make do, but also that you’ve got to be able to do a lot of different things,” he says. “When you combine this with modern tools—today’s technology—you really have something special.”
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